Well, the tyranny of masculinity and the tyranny of patriarchy I think has been much more deadly to men than it has to women. It hasn’t killed our hearts. It’s killed men’s hearts. It’s silenced them, it’s cut them off.
Interpretation
This quote criticizes the harmful effects of patriarchy on men, suggesting it stifles their emotional expression and well-being.
Eve Ensler's quote highlights the detrimental impact of traditional masculinity and the patriarchal system on men's emotional lives. Rather than solely affecting women, she argues that these societal pressures significantly harm men by discouraging them from expressing vulnerability and deep feelings, ultimately leading to emotional disconnection and suffering.
In practice
In a discussion about gender roles during a seminar on masculinity.
Dancing insists we take up space, and though it has no set direction, we go there together. Dance is dangerous, joyous, sexual, holy, disruptive, and contagious and it breaks the rules. It can happen anywhere, at anytime, with anyone and everyone, and it's free. Dance joins us and pushes us to go further and that is why it's at the center of ONE BILLION RISING.
Before cancer, I was obviously disconnected. I had a tumor the size of a mango inside me and didn't do anything about it. It wasn't like I didn't know something was wrong.
It's a weird thing about the truth: It protects you. What really makes you vulnerable is when you're lying because you're going to get caught. When you tell the truth, there's a strange relief that comes.
Why are women immobile? Because so many feel like they’re waiting for someone to say, "You’re good, you’re pretty, I give you permission."
Security is elusive. It's impossible. We all die. We all get old. We all get sick. People leave us. People change us. Nothing is secure.
I've been involved in social activism my entire life, and I would argue that many people involved in social activist movements have done very little work on themselves.
Scenes are now to take place as will open the eyes of credulity and of insanity itself, to the dangers of a paper medium abandoned to the discretion of avarice and of swindlers.
Why did we become blind, I don't know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.
I believe in the religion of reason -- the gospel of this world; in the development of the mind, in the accumulation of intellectual wealth, to the end that man may free himself from superstitious fear, to the end that he may take advantage of the forces of nature to feed and clothe the world.
Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business and even in your diversions. He is always near you and with you; leave him not alone.
Every period ruled by mystics was an era of stagnation and want, when most men were on strike against existence.
We worship perfection because we can't have it; if we had it, we would reject it. Perfection is inhuman, because humanity is imperfect.
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